Medieval Treasure Found in Lancashire

A lucky metal detectorist from Lancashire has unearthed a medieval pilgrimage relic which will take its place amongst some of the most rare and revered Medieval Relics in an Exhibition at the British Museum.

The exhibition 'Treasures of Heaven' which opened last week and is on until 9th October, will for the first time bring into context, these sacred and mystical treasures from the Middle Ages.

The Guardian's Maev Kennedy reports;

The badge made of silver found by Paul King, a retired logistics expert, is a humble object to earn a place in an exhibition called Treasures of Heaven, but it is unique. It will sit among gold and silver reliquaries studded with gems the size of thumbnails – or the sockets from which they were wrenched by thieves – once owned by emperors, popes and princes.The badge, the only one of its kind ever found in Britain, provides a link 500 years ago between this corner of rural Lancashire and the great pilgrimage sites of mainland Europe. It shows one of the companions of St Ursula, one of the most popular mystical legends of medieval Europe...

King, a member of the South Ribble metal detecting club, found the silver plaque at the end of April in a field some miles from his home in Walton-le-Dale, where he had already found several hundred Victorian coins, but returned with the blessing of the landowner for a sweep with his new more high-powered metal detector.

"I knew immediately she was something special," he said. "I think she was hidden deliberately – she was folded over, not damaged by a plough strike in any way. It is extraordinary and moving to think how much history is locked up in this little piece of metal."

Though there are many variations, the story of St Ursula which was recorded by Jacobus de Voragine’s in his Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) of 1266, is that Ursula was a British Princess who was offered her hand in marriage by a pegan king. It is said that Ursula managed to delay the betrothal for 3 years during which time she had pleaded with her father to let her go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Ursula was accompanied by 10 ladies in waiting and each lady had 1,000 virgins who accompanied them on their Holy pilgrimage across Europe.

After meeting Pope Cyriacus in Rome the ladies returned home and in Cologne, were stopped, besieged and eventually beheaded by the Huns. The Legend says that St Ursula was shot with an arrow, which is why most depictions of the Saint portray her holding a single arrow in one hand to demonstrate her means of Martyrdom.

The Legend says that some date this event to 238 but that the year 452 is more likely.

The story originated in a local tradition in Cologne that some number of Christian virgins had been martyred by the Romans in the early years of the city. The earliest testimony to these virgins is a stone inscription from the fourth century, now in the choir of the Church of St. Ursula in Cologne. It speaks only of an unspecified number of virgin martyrs "from the East." But in the ninth century a number of liturgical sources mention these Colognese virgins, reporting their number variously as five, eight, or eleven. Scholars are uncertain as to how the number eleven was chosen and then multiplied by a thousand.

Maev Kennedy writes further;

Although a church in Cologne holds her shrine and a whole chapel still decorated with the supposed bones of her companions, there were so many bones that the relics spread across Europe and beyond. Some of the most beautiful reliquaries, life sized busts of fashionably dressed young women, were made to hold the bones. The badge from Lancashire is a representation of just such a shrine - and so close in style and early 16th century date that it may come from the same Bruges workshop as the one in the exhibition on loan from the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The Metropolitan reliquary, of a gently smiling young woman with her hair in a modish plaited style, is so alluring it has become the exhibition poster. The badge would have been bought as a souvenir by the Lancashire pilgrim from just such a shrine.

British Museum curator James Robinson said he was "beside myself with excitement" when he saw an image of the find. "To be honest if I hadn't been working on the exhibition it might have taken me a while to clock it – as it is I recognised her immediately as one of the companions of St Ursula. I hesitate to call it a miracle, but it is a most extraordinary coincidence that this should turn up just at this time."

He believes it is even possible that a similar reliquary may have been the centre of a shrine in Britain, destroyed as the cult of relics was condemned as idolatrous and blasphemous by religious reformers.

"The badge may be the only fragile, ephemeral piece of evidence for a cult of St Ursula in the north of England, that might have had at its centre a bust reliquary of continental manufacture."

The exhibition will include reliquaries which the faithful believed once held the breast milk of the Virgin Mary, the umbilical cord of the baby Jesus, the arm of Saint Luke - holding a golden pen to symbolise the gospels he wrote - and many still containing fragments of wood claimed to come from the cross on which Christ died. A carved icon of the Virgin which according to tradition was taken from the neck of the dead emperor Charlemagne, was one of the treasures of Aachen cathedral until it was given as present to Napoleon's Josephine. Some of the loans have never before left the churches or villages where they have been venerated for centuries. Many were believed to have miraculous powers, and made the places that held them wealthy pilgrimage sites - as Canterbury cathedral was for the relics of the martyred Thomas a Becket, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain remains to this day.

King, who has always been interested in history and spends days researching his finds in museums and archives, reported it under the Portable Antiquities scheme which encourages metal detectors to report all their archaeological finds, but she proved to be silver and so legally treasure which must be reported. When valued - the price will be shared between King and the landowner - Robinson hopes the British Museum will acquire her to find a permanent resting place in its medieval galleries

The Lancashire St Ursula badge and the Exhibition 'Treasures of Heaven' can be seen at the British Museum. For further information please see the below links:-

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/treasures_of_heaven/introduction.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Ursula

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/jun/20/badge-dug-field-medieval-treasure?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/ursula.html

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/online/exhibitions/faith/stursula.asp

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/index.htm

New Turin Shroud Speculation; Was Giotto its Creator?

The Shroud of Turin, has for centuries, created a mass of speculation and myth around its creation and authenticity; the latest of which, seems to disallow for any recent research into the carbon dating of the cloth of the Shroud, and instead propels renaissance artist Giotto into the spotlight as its cunning creator.

The commonly known 'lunatic fringe' of researchers into the relic's provenance have, in the past, linked Leonardo Da Vinci to the Shroud, suggesting that the image on the cloth is an early photo-generated image from Leonardo's experimental art studios...

This new theory seems to be clinging onto the already disproved argument, that the images on the cloth are made with paint. Artist and restorer Luciano Buso claims to have solved the allusion of the Shroud, and in good old fashioned speculative enthusiasm, has used mysterious hidden names and secret numbers to determine his conclusion.

For those who are unclear as to the history of the Shroud, here's a quick run down of recent research into its authenticity; Said to be the very cloth that Christ was swathed in after Crucifixion, the Shroud of Turin currently lies in Turin's Cathedral as a very real relic of Christianity.

In 1979, a world renowned forensic, Walter McCrone, claimed that he had found paint on the fibers of the cloth. This backed up the local legend that the Shroud had first appeared in 1356 in the hands of a French knight. The Shroud was subsequently called a fake by a local Bishop who claimed at the time, that an artist must have ''cunningly painted it''. Later in 1988, a series of very controversial carbon 14 dating tests were carried out on the edge of the cloth, after stipulations agreed with the Church, so as not to damage the relic. These carbon dating results showed that the fibers of the cloth dated to the Middle Ages between 1260 and 1390.

Skepticism as to the reliability of the dating methods used during the carbon dating experiment circulated and came to a head in 1998 after a photograph of the Shroud proved the image on the cloth to be an exact negative of a human face, and was therefore unlikely to have been painted on. This then called into question how the image was formed and furthermore, whether the carbon dating for the edges of the cloth were accurate.

The image was believed to be a chemical reaction from an embalming ointment applied to the skin of a person, which had 'caramelised' and reacted to the cloth over time.

The bloodstains

The bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin are composed of hemoglobin and give a positive test for serum albumin. Numerous tests confirm this.

The images

The Shroud of Turin's images are superficial and fully contained within a thin layer of starch fractions and saccharides that coats the outermost fibers of the Shroud. The color is a caramel-like substance, probably the product of an amino/carbonyl reaction. Where there is no image, the carbohydrate coating is clear. There is also a very faint image of the face on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin which lines up with the image on the front of the cloth. There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the images on the Shroud of Turin were produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the linen fibers. This is incorrect. The coating, whether imaged or clear, can be reduced with diimide or removed with adhesive leaving clear cellulose fiber.

The images as they appear on the Shroud of Turin are said to be negative because when photographed the resulting negative is a positive image.

The Turin Shroud was examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser­microprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing. No evidence for pigments (paint, dye or stains) or artist's media was found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin - www.shroudstory.com

The carbon dating to the Middle Ages is also questioned as the medieval fibers which were tested have now been found to be mixed with earlier fragments of cloth in a commenly used repair method called 'invisible mending'. This is where new fibers of the cloth are woven with the old fibers so minutely that a repair is not visible to the untrained eye.

So, Mr Buso's theory, as you can see, is somewhat out of date. Nevertheless, if the Shroud is believed to be medieval, and that the image has been painted onto the cloth, and it has been proven that the image on the Shroud is in the negative, then it must have taken an extraordinary artist to complete the task, and Mr Buso believes that artist to be Giotto.

Nick Squires from the Telegraph reports:

Luciano Buso claims to have found Giotto di Bondone's signature hidden in the 14ft-long, sepia-coloured burial cloth, as well as the number 15.

The historian believes that the number is a reference to 1315, and that the artist was commissioned in that year to come up with an exact copy of the relic because the original was badly damaged after centuries of being hawked around the Holy Land and Europe.

Mr Buso, who has laid out his controversial thesis in a new book, said the idea that the existing shroud was created in 1315 agrees with modern carbon dating tests which dated the fabric to the early 14th century.

He told The Daily Telegraph that he believes the original was indeed the sheet used to cover Christ's body but that it disintegrated, or was lost or burned, sometime after the copy was made.

After months of analysis, he claims to have found several 15s and Giotto's name hidden in the imprint of Christ's face and hands – a means by which the artist stamped his mark on his work.

Jonathan Jones of the Guardian responds as to why Giotto could have been up to the task;

Well, Giotto had the genius for it, that much is true. He could probably have knocked up a shroud or two in his lunchtime, if he felt like it. But why would he want to? Nothing in what is known of his life or art suggests any such activities or interests. "Cimabue used to think he led the field," says his contemporary Dante in The Divine Comedy, referring to the great Florentine painter who discovered the artist's talent. But now Giotto has eclipsed him.

Giotto was the most emotionally eloquent painter of his age; he gave people expressions, gestures and statuesque figures that convey, to us as much as to his contemporaries, the deepest human passions. This was a time of great new energies and ideas. Towns and cities were full of pride and wealth, an urban world beautifully captured in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's depiction of medieval Siena. Meanwhile, the vision of Saint Francis of Assisi liberated religion from obscurities and spoke directly to hearts and souls. Giotto's art is as lucid as a Franciscan sermon, and it depicts the ordinary, unaffected faces of merchants, artisans, women and priests. You see its power in his portrayal of the death of Saint Francis in a fresco in the church of Santa Croce, Florence.

Looking at these paintings and considering the claim that Giotto created the Turin Shroud, the question is why our culture needs such a daft story to get us talking about him. Giotto was a deeply serious artist. His achievement, fulsomely recognised in the Renaissance, was to ground painting in the observation of nature, to free it from obscurities, to make it human and real. Beside his paintings, the idea of Giotto taking time off to concoct a relic seems silly. He was too well-known, too ambitious and too profound to either want to do it or get away with it unnoticed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8561812/Turin-Shroud-the-creation-of-a-Renaissance-artist.html

http://www.shroudstory.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jun/09/giotto-paint-turin-shroud

A Medieval Lute Luxury: The Gift of Music CD Review

Another lovely CD from The Gift of Music website - www.thegiftofmusic.com

They have a great variety of heritage music on offer, this being one of them. I think the website and musician describe the ambiance of the CD the best;

Travels with my Lute - Lynda Sayce Ref: CDG1114

Travels with my Lute

Fine Renaissance music

The gentle lute: played by one of Britain's leading virtuosos, Lynda Sayce, this programme draws together the best lute music of the Renaissance, contrasting the different regional musical styles which emerged during the golden period of lute composition. Played on a variety of different lutes as appropriate.

Italy
six course lute
1 Fantasia Marco da L'Aquila (fl. XVIth century)
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus Ms 266
2 Calata alla spagnola detto terzetti Joanambrosio Dalza (fl. 1508)
3 Pavana alla Ferrarese
4 Saltarello
5 Piva
Dalza, Intabulatura di Lauto. Libro Quarto. Venice 1508
6 Fantasia Petro Paulo da Milano (fl. XVIth century)
7 Tocha tocha la canella Anonymous/ Giovanni Antonio Casteliono
Giovanni Antonio Casteliono, Intabolatura de leuto de diversi autori. Milan 1536
8 Ricercar (Ness 51) Francesco da Milano (1497-1543)
Intabolatura de lautto Libro Settimo. Recercari novi del divino M. Francesco da Milano. Venice 1548
9 Ricercar (Ness 40)
Intabolatura de lauto di M. Francesco Milanese et M. Perino Fiorentino. Libro Terzo. Venice 1547


Germany
bass lute
10 Preambel in Re Anonymous
11 Mein Vleis und Mue Ludwig Senfl (c.1486-c.1543) anon. setting
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. Ms. 1512
12 Elslein liebstes Elslein mein Ludwig Senfl
Hans Newsidler, Ein Newgeordent künstlich Lautenbuch. Nuremberg 1536
13 Der Beyrisch Bok Tantz weyss/Der Hupff auff Hans Newsidler (c.1508-1563)
14 Vita in ligno moritur, prima pars Ludwig Senfl
15 König Ferdinandus Tantz/Der Hupff auff Hans Newsidler
Hans Newsidler, Das Ander Buch. Ein new künstlich Lauten Buch. Nuremberg 1549
16 Ein Welscher Tantz Wascha Mesa/Der Hupff auff
Hans Newsidler, Ein Newgeordent künstlich Lautenbuch. Nuremberg 1536


France
six course lute
17 Fortune laisse moy Pierre Attaignant (ca.1494-1551/2)
Pierre Attaignant, Tres breve et familiere introduction. Paris 1529
18 Basse dance 'La Maddalena' - recoupe - tordion
Pierre Attaignant, Dixhuit Basses Dances garnies. Paris, 1530
19 Mille regretz Josquin des Prez (c.1440 - 1521)
1st setting: Pierre Phalèse, Hortus Musarum. Louvain 1552
2nd setting: Pierre Phalèse, Des Chansons Reduictz en tabulature de Luc, Livre deuxiéme. Louvain 1546
20 Tant que vivray Claude Sermisy (1490-1562)
Pierre Phalese, Des Chansons Reduictz en Tablature de Luth, Livre Premier. 2nd edition. Louvain 1547
21 Passemeze Adrian le Roy (c.1520-1598)
A briefe and easye instrution. London 1568 (English translation of a lost French lute book of 1557)
22 Bransle Guillaume Morlaye (c.1510-c.1558)
Uppsala, University Library, MS 412
23 Branle gay Adrian le Roy
Adrian le Roy, Premier livre de tablature de luth. Paris 1551

England
seven course lute
24 Passamezzo Pavan (bass lute) John Johnson (c.1540-1594)
Cambridge, University Library, Ms Dd.2.11
25 Galliard: Muy Linda Anthony Holborne (fl.1584-1602)
Cambridge, University Library, Ms. Dd.5.78.3
26 Almain: The night watch
Willey Park, Shropshire, private library of Lord Forrester, John Welde lute book
27 Jig: Wanton
Cambridge, University Library, Ms. Dd.5.78.3
28 Fantasia a 5 John Dowland (1563-1626)
Cambridge, University Library, Add. Ms 3056
29 Lachrimae
Cambridge, University Library, Ms. Dd.5.78.3
30 Galliard
London, British Library, Hirsch Ms 1353
31 Mr Dowland's Midnight
London, Royal Academy of Music, Ms 603, (The Margaret Board lute book)

Lynda Sayce, lute


CCL CDG1114
P & C 2005 Classical Communications Ltd
Cover image: Young Lute Player by Vittore Carpaccio, detail from
The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple 1510 from S.Giobbe altarpiece, Venice
Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library
Made in Great Britain

Inside book:

Travels with my lute
Fine Renaissance music

Lynda Sayce

The lute encapsulates the spirit of the renaissance. It was immortalized in poetry by Ronsard and Shakespeare, and on canvas by Holbein, da Vinci, Titian and Raphael. It was played by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Martin Luther and Galileo. Its huge and magnificent repertory is one of the artistic glories of the 16th century, and, true to the spirit of the age, it was constantly being reborn as different cultures adopted it and made it their own.

The earliest lute manuscripts date from years around 1500, when lutenists had only recently adopted the new-fangled technique of plucking with the fingers. The lute was originally played with a plectrum, which largely confined it to playing single lines. Plucking with the fingers made polyphony possible on a single lute, and suddenly lutenist-composers had a subtle and versatile instrument of unrivalled emotive power, uniquely possessing both the chromatic capability of keyboard instruments, and the dynamic and tonal flexibility of the harp. This description of the playing of Francesco da Milano, known as 'il Divino', gives some idea of the lute's power:


The tables being cleared, he chose one and, as if tuning his strings, sat on the end of a table seeking out a fantasia. He had barely disturbed the air with three strummed chords when he interrupted conversation which had started among the guests. Having constrained them to face him, he continued with such a ravishing skill that little by little, making the strings languish under his fingers in his sublime way, he transported all those who were listening into so pleasurable a melancholy that ... they remained deprived of all senses save that of hearing, as if the spirit, having abandoned all the seats of the senses had retired to the ears in order to enjoy the more at its ease so ravishing a harmony; and I believe ... that we would be there still, had he not himself - I know not how - changing his style of playing with a gentle force, returned the spirit and the sense to the place from which he had stolen them, not without leaving as much astonishment in each of us as if we had been elevated by an ecstatic transport of some divine frenzy.

Decades later, the English traveller Fynes Morison noted that

The Italians, and especially the Venetians, have in all tymes excelled [in the Art of Musick], and most at this day, not in light tunnes and hard striking of the stringes, (which they dislike), ... but in Consortes of grave soleme Musicke, sometymes running so sweetely with softe touching of the stringes, as may seeme to ravish the hearers spiritt from his body...

The Germans, on the other hand, 'like them better who strike hard upon the strings, then those who with a gentile touch make sweeter Melody, which they thincke fitter for Chambers to invite sleepe, then for feasts to invite mirth and drincking.' Appropriately enough, German lute collections are replete with lively dances, and German paintings and engravings show a definite preference for large lutes, well-suited to vigorous playing, but also prized for their exquisite sonority. Sadly the wonderful German lute repertory is rarely heard today, because it was written in a particularly tortuous notation system which had no stave but used the entire alphabet twice over, plus several numbers and a few Greek letters too.

The lute was the pre-eminent courtly instrument of mid-16th France, ennobled in verse by the great French poet Ronsard, who hailed it as 'the glory and trophy of Phoebus', capable of curing lovesickness and envious cares. The influential Ronsard admired chanson composers, and Josquin above all, so not surprisingly arrangements (called intabulations) of vocal music are extremely important in French lute collections.

The final flowering of renaissance lute music occurred in England in the latter half of Elizabeth I's reign. English taste eschewed vocal intabulations in favour of dance forms and variation sets. John Johnson (d.1594) was the first major English lute composer. Both he and Anthony Holborne (d.1602) served Elizabeth, the former as one of her 'Musitians for the three lutes', the latter as a gentleman usher. Ironically the greatest English lutenist, John Dowland, was repeatedly denied a court position, perhaps because of his Catholicism but more likely because of his difficult personality. He and Francesco da Milano may be considered the alpha and omega of the renaissance lute, both in terms of their international fame and the longevity of their music.

Lynda Sayce

Lynda Sayce read Music at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, then studied lute with Jakob Lindberg at the Royal College of Music, and also took continuo classes with Nigel North. She holds a Ph.D for her research on the history of the theorbo, which is to be published as two books in 2005-6. Lynda has contributed articles to Early Music, the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music, and the art journal Apollo, and has edited many music publications. She performs regularly with leading period instrument ensembles, including The King's Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Musicians of the Globe. For many years she was lutenist with the award-winning ensemble Charivari Agréable. She appears on more than 100 CD recordings, and has broadcast on radio and TV stations throughout Europe, and in the USA, Japan and South America. On this recording Lynda plays lutes by Ivo Magherini (6 course and bass) and Michael Lowe (7 course).

For further information on Lynda and her work, please visit www.theorbo.com